Engineer and botanist Larry Leach specialised in southern African succulent taxonomy.
Born in Southend, England, he began a career in the army, where he trained as an instrument technician. In 1938 he emigrated to Salisbury, Rhodesia (Harare, Zimbabwe), where he established an engineering company. The business was very successful, and he worked on Royal Air Force aircraft during the Second World War.
Meanwhile, Leach was developing a keen interest in succulent plants, which he grew in his large garden in Greendale, a suburb to the east of Harare. He struck up friendship with two other succulent enthusiasts at this time, Basil Christian and Gilbert Reynolds.
After his wife died in 1956, Leach gave up his engineering business to devote himself to taxonomic studies of the Stapeliae, Euphorbieae and Aloe, focusing on the region covered by Flora Zambesiaca. He collected extensively in Mozambique, Angola and South Africa, as well as Zimbabwe and other southern African countries, and in 1968 was awarded the Harry Bolus Medal by the Botanical Society of Southern Africa for his work.
In recognition of his self-taught expertise, the National Herbarium of Rhodesia appointed him Honorary Botanist in 1972. Between 1978 and 1988 he authored four volumes on the taxonomy of his favoured groups, which appeared as a supplement to the journal Excelsa. He received the Rhodesia Scientific Association’s Gold Medal in 1977.
Leach settled in South Africa in 1981, where he worked at the National Botanic Garden in Worcester until 1989. In this period he published a work on the succulent Stapeliae of southern Africa in Excelsa and was made a fellow of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America in 1983.
From 1990 until his death, Leach worked on the succulent Euphorbieae for Flora Zambesiaca, being based at the University of the North, Pietersburg, as an Honorary Research Fellow.
Leach collected more than 12,000 specimens, from which more than 100 were identified as new species. He is commemorated in many plant names, including Aloe leachii Reynolds, Dombeya leachii Wild and Huernia leachii Lavranos.
Sources:
L.E. Codd, 1966, "Leslie Charles Leach", Bothalia, 8(suppl): 61-64
G.F. Smith, G. Williamson, 1997, "Leslie Charles Leach (1909-1996)", Taxon, 46(2): 374-376.
